You've lost me ... — 180 Proof

Really? What seems to be the issue with my position?

Okay, but that's a providential idea, Smith, not a "quintessential conspiracy — 180 Proof

What's so different about a terrified woman trying to prove to disbelieving cops that there's an invisible man who's framing her and a priest claiming that there's an invsibe god who too intervenes/interferes in/with our lives?

Everybody has a picture of the life they want to live and compares that to the life they're living. That's normal, rare are those for whom the two are indentical. Hence, as one Buddhist monk was kind enough to edify me, we have things we don't want and don't have things we want, only two components of the Buddhist take on suffering (dukkha). I suppose wanting to live another person's life boils down to these two states of dissatisfaction. To add insult to injury, one usually encounters an individual who has a life that matches your conception of an ideal life. Then, not only do you curse your luck, you also must now suffer the ignominy of being green with envy. Double whammy!

I think this point is only one conception of "God" and even then it's not "conspiratorial" but occult instead. Most of reality experienced by human beings is unseen, not "conspiratorial". Besides, in the Abrahamic tradition for instance, who (or what) is conspiring with "God" to carry out this "quintessential conspiracy theory of cosmic proportions" if there is "only one God"? And what is being transgressed – "law" is being broken – to constitute a "cosmic conspiracy"? — 180 Proof

I was thinking more along the lines of...

Everything happens for a reason.

and

God moves in a mysterious way. — William Cowper

and

There are no accidents. — Master Oogway

Chance as a manifestation of God. God intervenes by manipulating chance. The objective? Probably not to cause confusion and keep us guessing as much as to play by the rules. God doesn't break the laws of nature, He only, for instance, "suggests" you carry a Bible in your breast pocket, not just any breast pocket, the left one, that same Bible that blocks the bullet aimed at your :heart:. :grin:

I think the update is simulation theory. — Tom Storm

:up:

I concur, the light that once was, of some metaphors, has clearly gone out. Panta rhei: it's an ineluctable consequence of the larger process of change/transformation (anicca).

However, has that much water flowed under the bridge to make some historical/ancient metaphors utterly useless? It's been just 2.5k years since philosophy took root and literature too, language has been around for roughly 7k years tops. Perhaps there's still life in these "ancient" metaphors, they still pack a punch if you know what I mean. We still have caves, fire, people, and shadows.

Anyway, thanks for sharing your views on such an exciting topic.

If I may fuse Wittgenstein and Gadamer, then I postulate that 'automatic' metaphor (the kind we act on without noticing) is hugely important for us to be intelligible to one another. At the same time it's one of the major opponents of the philosopher. My fancy way of putting it is...the past that haunts the future that haunts the present. We are future oriented beings whose very goals are determined by inherited ways of talking/thinking. But it's only this inheritance that lets us think at all.

I ask myself how language could develop to include more and more 'literal' abstractions. I don't think some God put the idea of cause and God and rationality in our skulls. I imagine we'd have had to start with names for objects and embed them in a dialogue that lifted them from such a narrow use. — jas0n

Yep, I remember how I tried to modernize Plato's Allegory of the Cave and simply couldn't find anything in today's world that could replace "shadows" and "cave". One philosopher comes close to achieving this using the images on an idiot box (TV) to replace the shadows on the wall of Plato's cave.

Suggestion: It's time we updated the metaphors we find so useful and adapt them to current times so that people can relate to them more easily. An example of a successful metaphor rehash is the brain-in-a-vat gedanken experiment.

we are mostly stuck — jas0n

Indeed! Maybe metaphors occur as systems e.g., I juat found out, theatrical metaphors ("All the world's a stage..."; Shakesepeare) could limit one's understanding, viewing everything in terms of actors/plays/movies/etc.

Likewise, each domain of human activity may serve to construct a metaphorical system specific to it e.g. there could be physics metaphors, a sociological one, and so on.

Metaphors are, as presented in the OP, basically analogies - comparing one thing to another, emphasizing how they resemble each other (so much).

The primary subject (the thing you want to make a point about) is, in a sense, reduced to the analog (that which is being used as a yardstick/standard).

There's a clear and present danger of commiting the strawman fallacy as the analog is, on most occasion, simpler (cartoonish) than the primary subject; there's a thin line between simplifying and oversimplifying I suppose.

Metaphors also tend to pop up in situations where the words to express certain thoughts and, mostly feelings are missing from a standard dictionary. Examples? Think of one on your own. I promise it'll be worth your while.

@jas0n and I had a conversation on this topic and he wished to point out that though metaphors are useful - they can add that zing that makes conversations interesting to say the least - they're also, in a certain sense, pitfalls for they, I surmise, constrain a person to a particular point of view, a one-dimensional way of looking at things that though helpful can result in tunnel vision. Am I right jasOn?

concept of God — Jack Cummins

Immanuel Kant, if accounts of him are accurate, was averse to God as traditionally understood, an idea we could mentally manipulate with the aid of logic in order to prove/disprove. That, he claimed, is NOT God. He offers an alternative which, for the life of me, I can't recall.

Daniel Dennett makes a similar point. Once you accept that God is a concept, you're an atheist, you just don't know that you're one.

God isn't a concept. Am I concept? Are you? :grin:

Sam Harris: Mostly focuses on the ills of religion (terrorism, oppression of women, and so on)

Christopher Hitchens: Ditto

Daniel Dennett: Haven't seen a video where he presents his position in re God, but it's widely believed that he's an athesit.

Richard Dawkins: Science and religion are incompatible. That's his mantra. Emphasizes Darwin's theory of evolution, and pits it against religious creationism.

Gandhi — Jack Cummins

Gandhi demonstrated the falsity of the ol' adage fight fire with fire. Violence has a tendency to spiral out of control i.e. it eventually devolves into a zero-sum, death match.

All I'm saying is, it just dawned on me, alcohol (and tobacco) is/are (a) WMD(s)s, you just don't realize it. Like nuclear power, it has its pros (many a diplomatic agreements have been made based on the quality and quantity of liquor served in receptions), but it has huge cons (cirrhosis is a direct effect, consider indirect costs like MVA/RTAs, domestic violence, bar/street brawls, etc.)

In 2016, 3 million deaths, or 5.3 percent of all global deaths (7.7 percent for men and 2.6 percent for women), were attributable to alcohol consumption. Globally, alcohol misuse was the seventh-leading risk factor for premature death and disability in 2016. — www

Idk. I referred to gnosticism which says we're "spirits" trapped in prison-matter separated from "God" as an example of a 'metaphysical conspiracy'. — 180 Proof

I did come across that view before; it was Socrates/Plato/Aristotle who said that the body is a prison for the soul, trapping us in the imitation, flawed world of the physical.

Then I met this other guy, forgot his name, who makes the exact opposite claim: bodies are trapped by souls. The point? The physical is more sublime than the mental.

:chin:

I was simply trying to point out that metaphysics is, by definition, speculative and so there's a clear risk that some of us might go overboard with it. God is, in my humble opinion, the quintessential conspiracy theory of cosmic proportions. Tertium quid. Have you watched The Invisible Man?

And if the truth is that some - many - terms are not definable in the way you suppose, you would pretend otherwise in order to retain your mythology? — Banno

It's a tough call. What should I do? Treat nonsense as philosophy or give up philosophy altogether.

These are the two choices that are available, oui?

The latter connects "ideological / existential" dots arbitrarily (i.e. inductively) in a paranoiac manner whereas the former tend to fill in "transcendent(al)" gaps deductively from arbitrary axioms in a dogmatic manner. Sometimes they converge e.g. Gnosticism — 180 Proof

:lol: God is a conspiracy theory, oui? There's an invisible, bearded ol' fogey who's pulling all the strings - we're mere puppets and YHWH is the puppetmaster! Predistination and all that!

So,

1. Information is fundamental to your philosophy.

2. Your aim is to develop a framework or system that allows you to make sense of the world and not to find truth per se. Of course a theory of everything (ToE), your aim, would explain anything and everything and that's as good as knowing the truth if not the truth itself.

3. You don't deny that not all polarities vis-à-vis truth can be resolved by finding the middle ground (you gave an example of torture; some torture, the midpoint, isn't exactly what someone like yourself would be ok with). This, I suspect, is the argumentum ad temperantiam fallacy I referred to in my previous post.

The long and short of it: You have a ToE and although perfectionist would easily find flaws in it, at the very least, it has a general applicability that you find satisfactory (for the moment).

Notice, I believe I've already mentioned this in my previous post, that the aureas mediocritas (the golden mean/the middle path) only applies in matters we're still in the dark about e.g. god and not in those we're certain of the truth. To illustrate, if I say diamonds are hard and you say they're soft, we can verify the truth by actually taking a diamond and checking if it's hard/soft. There's no middle ground between hard and soft for a diamond. Contrast that to a debate on God. Missing evidence to settle the matter provides the perfect environment for your Both/And Principle. In other words, your system is designed to make sense of and navigate our ignorance and what is it that we know the least about? Metaphysics, i.e. your Both/And Principle is tailor-made to do metaphysics and is, in my humble opinion, one of the best tools in a metaphysician's toolkit.

I'll leave you with a question: Can metaphysical claims be verified/falsified?

Exciting how? — baker

Read a book baker, preferrably one that doesn't end with the deaths of all the characters.

I dunno why you're trying to say alcohol is not (that) bad, at least not as bad as a WMD. It (alcohol) does have a soothing effect though and soldiers and sailors who lead dangerous lives have always been supplied with liquor which, apart from calming their nerves, is also a good disinefectant (for battle wounds).

Too, as a social lubricant, it might've been the key ingredient in the success of many historically important deals (civilian & military) between countries that paved the way for life as we know it - relative peace and comfort.

Who knows if Hermann and Pauline hadn't had that late evening wine sometime in 1878 that put 'em in the mood if you catch my drift, Einstein would never have been born on 14^th March 1879.

You mean, the distractions? — baker

Not all stories end in physical death. Exciting stuff happen before we cross the river Styx.

Thanks for SMART, smarty pants.

It ends in aging, illness, and death. How else? — baker

Yup. I was thinking more in terms of exhilarating stuff that happen before we kick the bucket.

Of course I'm not joking. Let's assume that two straight lines is "close" to being a single curved line, two being "close" to one. The curved line is a single line, the two straight lines is two distinct lines. Now you seem to think that the more straight lines you put together, 3, 4, 5, 6, the closer you get to being a single line, such that as you approach an infinity of straight lines, it becomes one curved line. Can't you see that you're going the wrong way? Instead of getting closer and closer, you're getting further and further. Producing a larger and larger multiplicity does not somehow produce the conclusion that the multiplicity is getting closer and closer to being a single entity. — Metaphysician Undercover

You're a perfectionist and so the mathematics of infinity and infinitesimals won't make any sense to you.

Would you say the following is an accurate characterization of your Both/And Principle.?

Theism: God
Atheist: No God
Deist: Yes God but not in the theistic sense & No God but not in the atheistic sense.

You want to, in a sense, incorporate the best of both (opposing) worlds, that's what we recognize as the aurea mediocritas (the golden mean), in your quest to gain a complete understanding of reality. You need both halves (the yin & the yang).

---

However, as I've always been concerned about, doesn't your Both/And Principle violate 2 laws of logic viz. the law of the excluded middle and the law of noncontradiction (given a proposition p, either p is true or ~p is true but not the case that both p and ~p are true/false at the same time). As an illustration, either theism is true or atheism is true, but both can't be true and both can't be false. There can be no middle ground betwixt theism and atheism.

Sticking to the example of theism vs. atheism, once we get our hands on solid proof, either theism will be true or atheism will be true, neither can both be true and nor can both be false.

In other words, the Both/And Principle seems useful/applicable only in cases where we lack definitive, sound arguments to settle disagreements which includes most/all of metaphysics. That is to say your principle isn't actually about truth, but more about harmony.

---

Coming to what I suggested you examine, Nagarjuna's tetralemma, it also deals with, in my humble opinion, metaphysics. On the issue of God (say), it negates all possible claims within a bivalent logic (vide infra)

Where G = God exists, B = Buddha exists after death

1. God exists. . No!
2. God doesn't exist. No!
3. God exists and God doesn't exist. No!
4. Neither God exists, nor God doesn't exist. No!

The point is we can't discuss metaphysics for it's impossible to justify any claims we make therein (pure speculation is all
that we can manage). Nagarjuna's tetralemma (4-fold negation) then is designed to terminate all metaphysical discourse. By the way, Nagarjuna's tetralemma is known as the middle way because it rejects/negates extremes.

A man focussed on goals and always in a hurry — unenlightened

Goals! I recall a video clip in which Daniel Bonevac (philosopher) claims that a goal-oriented mindset may not be the best way to live life. Did he mention stress? memory read failure.

My goal is to grow old and die, and to do it as slowly as possible — unenlightened

:lol: Not in the least sense interested in the live fast, die young crowd, eh?

Look at how Mayflies live (life expectancy 5 mins for females - 2 days for males)! These insects accomplish everything some lucky humans do (birth, childhood, adulthood, family, death and all the intervening crap), it's just that everything is faster, a lot faster, for them. Talk about living in the fast lane!

I know some people who have no patience when watching movies. The parts they get thems stoked are played at normal speed and the parts that are boring are fast forwarded. I wish we could do that in the real word. Skip to the interesting part storyteller, forget the buildup, I want to know how it ends!

All delusions are beliefs. That, to me, is the nub of the issue.

:up:

I like what you did there. Declare a variable (x) and delineate its functions (job description). The audience is free to assign any value to x. God, Chance, Alice from Wonderland, Dracula, whathaveyou. When you explain it, it seems so obvious, but then it isn't exactly as plain as the nose on your face. :up:

Have you ever considered that you could be, by limiting yourself to a binary system (for vs. against), alloying the two belligerent sides on any issue, you could very well be committing the false dichotomy fallacy or the argumentum ad temperantiam fallacy.

For instance, in the debate between atheism and theism, is it possible that, instead of trying to unify the two into a whole, you could reject both and contemplate on a third alternative which is neither theism nor atheism, and not some amalgamation of the two (the middle), but something else entirely. Have you come across Nagarjuna's terralemma?

Scholars of the highest class, when they hear about the Tao, take it and practice it earnestly.

Scholars of the middle class, when they hear of it, take it half earnestly.

Scholars of the lowest class, when they hear of it, laugh at it.

Without the laughter, there would be no Tao. — Laozi

Life is, much to my dismay, one helluva funny joke! My suffering, alas, all for nought!

The Tao is ruthless — Laozi

We're straw dogs (chogou) in front of the Tao!

X: We need to have a serious discussion.

Y: About what?

X: Humor!

X and Y: :rofl:

Z: Not funny!

:grin:

Jokes aside, what is it that makes things hilarious?

The philosophical joke I'm familiar with is the reductio ad absurdum (reduce to an absurdity). How much of a thigh-slapper it is depends on whether you contradicted yourself or your opponent did (schadenfreude).

Then there's satire which I feel is the highest form of humor! There's critical, life-changing, messages in them, plus you get to :rofl:

Weapons are ambiguous in that they can be used both for defense and offense. This rather simple fact underpins the rationale of the arms race. Don't forget to account for unprdecitability of people which extends to nations/countries. What we wind up with is a formula that's equally bisemous - are we strengthening our defenses or are we making preparations to attack an other? This dual purpose nature of arms has been used by governments and the military top brass to justify spending on war machines. It's not exactly a scam but it does come close to being one. It's like driving at 39.9999 mph on a road that has a speed limit of 40 mph. Not guilty on a technicality!

Human rights, can't say if there is such a thing at all. Alcohol is legal, tobacco is legal? Why? Revenue from these industries are so high that the government looks the other way when morbity and mortality statistics are flashed before them in animated powerpoints. Isn't it the same as being imprisoned without trial for (say) 30 years (approx. time it takes for alcohol and tobocco to have their lethal effect) and then being put to death (liver cirrhosis and lung cancer)?

And this happens. So what?

Further conversation might well reveal their differences.

Alternately, which of them is right? How will you decide?

All those infernal threads that start "what is..." reduced to froth. — Banno

I threw the bathwater. There was no baby in it. — Dan Barker

Well, if we view philosophy as simply a conversation, then it doesn't matter much whether we agree or not, right?

If, on the other hand, we deem philosophy to be some kind of journey of discovery, finding truths, we have a problem, because if Wittgenstein is correct, we're a hair's breadth away from commiting the fallacy of equivocation; lost in a world ruled by a function (sense/meaning $\to$ word) that has no inverse!

:up:

This takes us back to what Wittgenstein said about ostensive definitions.

Suppose X has the "essential" features a, b, c. I point to a coupla instances of X and say "this is X", basically defining X.

Person p looks at X's and thinks a is the essential feature. Person q thinks it's b and to person r, it's c.

We have now, in our hands, the recipe for confusion aka family resemblance:

The person p sees something that has feature a and concludes that's an X; the same goes for persons p and q with their own understanding (b, c) of X. Yet these things aren't exactly X's, oui?

To get to the point, ostensive definitions are (hopelessly?) inadequate unless done so with the greatest care, something we don't have the time for. Plus, it looks like misusing words (being lax with the definition of "definition" i.e. disjunction replaces conjunction) bears a striking resemblance to bad ostensive definitions.

So a family resemblance can be put in disjunctive normal form, but is extensible or retractible, changing the criteria with use. — Banno

Well, I could never wrap my head around Wittgenstein's "meaning is use" statement. How does one explain the overlap zones that aren't empty? People have been using meaning as that which picks out an essence, it's just that they've been doing it rather loosely.

Disjunction instead of Conjunction? Yeah, that explains a lot, but, sadly, it amounts to violating the rules of good definitions (as a list of sufficient and necessary conditions for a word to apply).

Does it cause problems in philosophy? Well, yes because we could be talking past each other e.g. to me religion could mean anything to do with god while to you it might mean moral codes sans a deity.

Is there a solution? We could focus on the common aspects and ignore the differences. So, if we were to discuss Christianity and Buddhism as religions, we could concentrate our efforts on morality, something that's in the overlap zone.

Can I get back to you later. Thanks. Have a good day.

Merriam-Webster:
Above the level of molecular biology, the notion of "gene" has become increasingly complex. The chapter in which Ridley addresses the ambiguities of this slippery word is an expository tour de force. He considers seven possible meanings of gene as used in different contexts: a unit of heredity; an interchangeable part of evolution; a recipe for a metabolic product; … a development switch; a unit of selection; and a unit of instinct.

But if you like polysemy, be my guest. Although, to me, it seems unseemly — jgill

Polysemy is necessary, our memory can't handle so many words as there would've been if it were not a feature of human language.

Ambiguity, a result of polysemy, nevertheless is to be avoided to the extent possible. It causes confusion.

I suppose it's a trade-off: to make language less memory-intensive we need to make a sacrifice, befuddlement.

Why don't we do something different?

Buddhism and Christianity both have rituals. Check.

Christianity and Judaisim both are monotheistic. Check.

Now what's the similarity between rituals and monotheism?

To give a mathematical example by way of clarification:

56 = 7 × 8
72 = 3 × 24

There doesn't seem to be anything common between 56 and 72 when factored this way, but hold on (vide infra)

8 = 2 × 4
24 = 6 × 4

8 and 24 have a common factor, 4, as I factorized them.

To cut to the chase, first identify any and all features common between any two religions, suppose these are x, y, z. Step 2, find what's common to all x, y, z. If nothing, repeat the process like so: What's shared between x,y and y, z and x, z. Say that's a, b, c. Reiterate the process until you finally arrive at what is the essence of a given word, here "religion".

Democritus, the laughing philosopher?

Heraclitus, the weeping philosopher?

A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes. — Witty

Life is no laughing matter!

Don't take life too seriously!

Opinions seem divided as to whether humor is good/bad.

There's a time and place for everything. Like the tale of the fool who didn't know the difference between sadness and joy recommends, don't cry at weddings and don't laugh at funerals! It'll only get you in trouble, big trouble!

Laughter is the best medicine!

Not with wrath do we kill, but with laughter. Come, let us kill the spirit of gravity! — FrIEdrich NIEtzsche

Nobody likes to be made the butt of a joke!

I don't mean to offend you. Maybe the metaphor is obscure. The point is simple. You didn't choose the sounds you chew when you have to talk to strangers and deal with the business of life. You didn't....invent the English language....or do I need to prove that? Am I so bold to be quite sure that neither of us forged their code we are currently employing? — jas0n

Yup, I didn't choose my language, but I can speak/write it, not that well but enough to get by. I find the concepts/words I use relatable at a very deep level i.e. I understand/know them fairly well. The same is true of you I bet.

What's your point though?

How does one measure certainty ? — jas0n

I don't know. Shouldn't you be the one telling us how to do that? After all, you come off as being very/quite certain about what you're saying, compared to me at least.

Language is received like the law' is something that it obvious once noticed. — jas0n

Then you go on to ask me how we measure uncertainty.